"Of course we spent our money in the good times. That's what you're supposed to do in good times! You can't save money in the good times. Then they wouldn't be good times, they'd be 'preparation for the bad times' times."

"Every country in the world owes money. Everyone. So heere's what I dont get: who do they all owe it to, and why don't we just kill the bastard and relax?"

"Tabloids" in the United States are generally understood to be full of completely made-up news for entertainment purposes alone; there are some exceptions (such as the National Enquirer, unless they have changed) that are more about sensationalist and misleading news and celebrity gossip, but even they are less mainstream than what I've seen of British papers labeled "tabloids".

Sounds like quite a cultural difference to sow confusion; not least because it's generally understood by intelligent readers in the UK that tabloids make up or radically twist the truth of SOME of their stories, usually to make them fit the political editorial slant associated with the paper, or for the purposes of sensationalisation. However some of them (ie the Daily Mail) are quite capable of seeming intelligent enough to the uninitiated to present themselves as serious news sources at the same time; and sometimes indeed they can be - it just requires an awareness of which topics a particular paper is likely to be unreliable on, which most people across the Atlantic who come across stories by chance don't have...

Originally Posted by tcda

these fuckers are prolific (the clues in the name I guess)

"Ethnic" whats, exactly? One assumes this is a euphemism to refer to those of a naturally dusky complexion, or of non-British birth, or speaking a language other than English as their native tongue, or being able to point proudly to their foreign antecedents, cultural sympathies, and name even though they are Uk citizens, perhaps of several generations' standing... but which, exactly? Or perhaps they're using this vague, all-encompassing term to justify lumping as many people as possible all together, in the hope of provoking the fears of the people who object to one particular ethnicity, who will naturally assume it's all going to be THEM?

The use of the word "ethnics" as a code for people with brown skin, probably following some market research to find out what presses readers buttons most effectively, is an attempt to normalise and mainstream racist dialect. Whether the hate figure is "asylum spongers", "gypsies", or Muslims, the Express and the Star find the frontiers and push forward as far as they can.

(...)

The Desmond media isn't behaving this way simply because the proprietor is a reactionary shit, but because they have carefully segmented out a market, an audience to sell to advertisers. I expect that their painstaking consumer surveys have told them that their readers are economically insecure, racist, and paranoid about the idea that the Third World may be seeping into the UK social landscape - you know, that poor, dirty place that British troops have to go and civilise every so often. You'd probably find that they're the same kinds of people who want to see a return to 'discipline' in schools, 'respect' for authority, and 'family values' - hence, the Express going for the whopper double bigotry burger last week with it's story about gay asylum seekers. It's part of a total, retrograde social vision that seeks solutions to social and economic insecurity in some sort of 'normative' condition that preceded Commonwealth migration and sexual liberation.

"Of course we spent our money in the good times. That's what you're supposed to do in good times! You can't save money in the good times. Then they wouldn't be good times, they'd be 'preparation for the bad times' times."

"Every country in the world owes money. Everyone. So heere's what I dont get: who do they all owe it to, and why don't we just kill the bastard and relax?"

Ethnics? The Express is really trying to move in on The Mail's target audience from the look of it.

Its just little englanders attacking Johnny Foreigner again isnt it? I mean it used to be the Scots and Irish they attacked, sometimes it still is, this is just another example of how reportage has given way to entertainment in news.